Are You Losing Tens Of Thousands Due To A Poor Conversion Rate?

We often meet with dentists attracting more than 40 new patients each month, yet their collections are less than competitors only receiving 10 to 12 new patients each month. Why? It’s usually poor treatment acceptance or conversion rates! According to Linda Valencia, Practice Consultant and owner of Mosaic Management Group, new patient treatment conversion rates should exceed 70% and existing patient conversion rates should exceed 85%. Many high-functioning practices achieve a 90% conversion rate!

You wouldn’t dare diagnose treatment without an X-ray, and yet tens of thousands of dentists are managing their practice without an X-ray of one of the most important metrics, treatment conversion rates. Keep reading to learn how to properly track your conversion rates and tips for increasing them.

Tracking Conversion Rate (Percentage of needed treatment dollars presented that’s accepted)

Most practice management systems do a poor job of tracking conversion rates. While unaccepted treatment is easy to see, accounting for how many times that treatment was recommended or whether it was a new or existing patient is difficult.

Linda recommends tracking conversions in two categories manually, new patients and existing patients, to easily spot problems. Each time treatment is presented key details should be entered into a spreadsheet, including date, patient name, recommended treatment amount, and whether or not treatment was accepted.

Linda recommends tracking significant cases only, leaving off anything less than a crown. To get started, Linda recommends incorporating the tracker into your daily huddle by having each hygienist report what treatment was presented the prior day, as well as what treatment was accepted and what treatment needs to be followed up on. Once you find out where you stand, take the following steps to improve!

Optimize the Patient Experience

For patients purchasing services they don’t fully understand, how you make them feel becomes extremely important. The reality is that people buy from people they
like! The Harvard Business Review published a research paper showing that people preferred buying from loveable fools to competent jerks. Now, we’re not telling you to be a loveable fool, since most people prefer to buy from someone who is both personable and competent.

However, the point is simple: likeable dentists have higher treatment conversion rates. Is your new patient phone call a pleasant experience? Is your front desk warm and cheerful when greeting patients? Do you engage patients on a personal level so they feel valued? Is everyone in your office smiling? These details matter and can add up to a “10 out of 10” patient experience leading to a higher treatment acceptance rate.

Coordinate Treatment Recommendations

One symptom of a low treatment acceptance rate is a team without a consistent approach. I can tell you from experience that when the hygienist points out my dental problem and shows me the intraoral photos, I shift from fear of the bill to how quickly can I get this fixed!

However, if I sat through a 45 minute hygiene appointment with nothing mentioned, and later treatment is recommended by the doctor, it comes as a total surprise and I’m much less likely to accept it. While you may spend only 10 minutes on each visit with the patient, the hygienist spends almost an hour. Trust starts with the hygienist and builds when the doctor continues recommending the same needed treatment! So make sure your team’s communication is coordinated, starting in the morning huddle.

Clearly Present Needed Treatment

Over $100 billion is spent on skincare each year, while patients continue to defer millions in necessary dental treatment. You must combine the want and desire to help your patients achieve better outcomes with a clear and concise approach to communicating the need. Avoid dental terms, since the words amalgam, composite, recurrent decay, pulp cap, caries, or even tooth 17 mean absolutely nothing to the average patient! Instead, use plain English to discuss what the intraoral photos and X-rays show, using an AI overlay. Moreover, be sure to thoroughly explain the downside of not moving forward with treatment by detailing what could go wrong if the problem isn’t corrected now. This isn’t a scare tactic, but rather a reality check since untreated dental disease doesn’t heal itself – it only becomes worse over time. If your conversion rates aren’t meeting the standards outlined above, take a hard look in the mirror and critically review your treatment presentation.

Offer Flexible Payment Options

Is your treatment affordable? This doesn’t mean being cheap or cutting fees. However, unexpected dental bills can be problematic since many patients are living on the edge financially. For treatment that can be paid off in a year or less, offer in-house financing for the patient portion, so long as the payments are made by automatic credit card charge. For larger cases, Cherry payments and/or CareCredit options should be made available.

The employee presenting treatment should have a knack for identifying patient hesitancy and where it comes from. A trained employee or treatment coordinator that can ask good questions can easily increase acceptance rates. If the payment is the issue, the employee should present payment options as normal operating procedures, not as handouts that make the patient feel inferior.

If you aren’t tracking conversion rates properly, spend 15 minutes with the employee in charge of treatment to get started. Much like losing weight, the first move is to step on the scale and get a baseline. Without one, you can’t measure how much potential treatment you’re losing!

For more information on practice management services provided by Mosaic Management Group, contact Linda Valencia at linda@ mosaicmanagementgroup.com or by phone (773)-294-5675 or Jody Catalanello at jody@mosaicmanagementgroup.com or by phone (773) 255-4004.